Subject and agentivity in Teotitlán Zapotec

Abstract

Abstract In Teotitlán Zapotec, some, but not all, verbs undergo stem alternation in the 1st person forms, in addition to the attachment of the pronominal enclitics that encode the subject argument. We argue that stem alternation and pronominal cliticization are independent from one another and that each encodes different grammatical features, agent and subject, respectively. The phenomenon discussed in this paper is peculiar in two respects. First, stem alternation as the exponent of the agent is cross-linguistically rare (although it is common within the Otomanguean languages). Furthermore, the category of agentivity has not been studied in detail in Zapotecan languages, but this paper shows the pervasiveness of agentivity in the Teotitlán Zapotec grammar.